


Cicatrix

by Ruby_Wednesday



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: M/M, Post-Kings Rising
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-22
Updated: 2016-08-22
Packaged: 2018-08-10 11:31:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7843258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruby_Wednesday/pseuds/Ruby_Wednesday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Damen's wounds are healed enough for him to take a proper bath. Laurent decides to attend him. </p>
<p>For Day Two of Captive Prince Week and the prompt <i>scars</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Cicatrix

**Author's Note:**

> Cicatrix - from Latin, meaning the scar of a healed wound.

It took two examinations, three consultations and an experimental salve before it was pronounced the wound in Damen’s belly was sufficiently healed to be immersed in water. The King’s body was everyone’s business, unfortunately for Laurent. He rather felt like it should only be the business of Damen and himself. Those long weeks on the road from Arles had spoiled them. They had grown too used to freedom. Or perhaps that was only Laurent. Damen had freedom greater than him for all of his life. The brawny champion Prince of Akielos was worshipped and let run wild. The pallid, cowardly stand-in Prince of Vere was kept on a tight leash.

“What has you looking so pensive?” Damen asked, from the bed he had hardly left these last days. It was nice for Laurent to have Damen to himself, even though both their places were on thrones not inside locked chambers.

“I’m thinking about leashes,” Laurent said.

“Miss holding one?” Damen asked, in that measured tone he used often when he played along with Laurent’s vagaries. 

“It could be arranged, if you do.”

“Laurent.”

“I don’t missing being at my uncle’s beck and call,” he said. “I…like being free.”

“You like being in charge.”

“That too,” Laurent said, feeling his lips curl with amusement. “So, in the spirit of being in charge I have ended the crisis of etiquette that has been gripping the royal baths since the physicians declared you well enough to properly bathe. Which, might I add, is a relief to me since I have to share a bed with you.”

“Hmmm,” said Damen. 

“I shall attend you,” Laurent announced. “See you in the baths.”

-

Every one knew Damianos had not used slaves since, as the Akielons put it, he came back from the dead. Servants attended him. Squires dressed him. There had been those strange days as part of a caravan where they did those things themselves. But Akielons were modest in some ways, and lewd in others. Laurent had never seen as much skin in his entire life as he had in this short time in Akielos. Wrists and ankles. Chests and thighs. And now that they were among women again, breasts and nipples that made him work to stare straight ahead. The temptation of old taboos piqued his interest, though not his desire. 

Among those who lived in the palace, there were attitudes to the body so deeply ingrained Laurent thought he would be hard pressed to get someone to explain them to him. Damen could strip naked, oil his body and cheerfully wrestle a soldier but the idea of that same soldier seeing him in a sexual situation was mindblowing. A squire could dress him in armour with pride, but it would be a blow to that same pride to hand Damianos a towel after bathing. Slaves had set roles and they did them with honour. But slaves would not be part of their lives from now on. Slaves would have their own lives, now.

At any rate, it was perfectly acceptable for Damen to be escorted to the baths by attendants. The news that the King was up and about again would lift the spirits of every palace dweller who saw him and spread out to the city and beyond. Laurent need not be by his side, so he went ahead to dismiss the bath slaves and make himself familiar with the soaps and oils and the baths themselves before Damen arrived.

The steam arrested Laurent’s senses, took him back to old places, and he was glad to have been alone for that moment. The drip echoed. The warmth got under his skin. His mind sent him back in time, to a self that was not the man standing here today, who fought through total disgust to coolly provoke Damen into a punishable act. The moments mingled to the act that followed, the joy he took in every lash, and then later to different baths in this very palace and the damp air in his lungs when he killed Kastor.

Brother for brother, Damen had murmured in drug induced sleep that same night. Which was true, and not true at all. A good brother for a bad brother. A situation brought to occurrence by his late father’s brother, who was the worst of them all. Laurent would have done everything in his power to save Damen and end Kastor, had their lives gone the right route and Auguste had not died. But he would not have had the chance or the need to, if Auguste had not died.

He could heard the slow slap of bare feet in the antechamber; the low murmur of Akielon voices who did not like leaving their Akielon king alone with their former enemy. 

“They think you will hurt me,” Damen said, almost apologetically as he stepped towards the water. Laurent stood, patient as a monk, with a towel around his hips and waited at the opposite side. He knew better than to offer his hand to Damen. That would be another injury to his pride.

“They know I could kill you,” Laurent said. “You convinced them of your own affections the day of the trial but not of my own. The Regent wanted two thrones, what’s to say the nephew is different? Shall I tell them of all the times I meant to see your death and could not let it happen.”

“Would not,” said Damen, dipping one toe in the water. Unlike Laurent, he did not bother with covering his impressive self with a towel. It was difficult to look anywhere but at his body and then, with a sparkle of warmth in his chest, Laurent remembered he did not need to avert his eyes. He allowed himself the freedom of a roaming gaze over all of Damen’s skin, the broad chest and the defined muscles made all the sweeter by the perpetual kindness in Damen’s face. He smiled to himself at the obvious pleasure Damen took in being appreciated by him. 

“It didn’t feel like that at the time,” Laurent said. “Do you need help getting in?”

“I can manage the three steps,” Damen said. And did, slowly, letting the steaming water go from his ankles to his thighs. Laurent held his breath and watched Damen’s face when the water covered the healing wound. He didn’t know what he thought would happen. Warm water would not make the skin split again. The worry dissipated as a look of soft contentment spread across Damen’s face. Simple pleasures could be as enjoyable as little victories. “Are you just going to stand there?” The certain tone was back in his voice, almost like a challenge.

“I thought you would command me as a slave,” Laurent said, making his way around the ledge of the bath.

“No, you didn’t,” Damen said. “Though I will if you want. Take off that towel and join me in the water.” There was a different tone, one Laurent knew was intrinsic to Damen rather than a deliberate inflection. The voice that made women quiver and men obey. They only voice that could make Laurent do as he was told. “It’s warm. You will like it.”

With a deliberate movement, to show he could not be so easily controlled, Laurent dropped the towel. It was his turn to enjoy the look of admiration as he slipped his body beneath the water. Damen was, as usual, right. Laurent did like the soothing heat of the water as it enveloped him. Tense in general, Laurent’s muscles and demeanour had been stretched to rigidity as the hard work of taking two thrones and deposing two usurpers took their toll these past days. 

“I thought it would be difficult to come down here,” Damen said, quietly. His eyes were on the marble arches in the ceiling. “You know they shackled me in the slave baths after … my father died. When I went to wait for Kastor, it was like stepping through a portal to the past with the first step inside.”

“Then you had to watch me kill him,” Laurent said.

“I watched and thought he would kill you.”

An admission that had been given before, in heightened emotions upstairs somewhere on a marble bed. _I thought I would lose you. Don’t ever scare me like that again. How could you be so stupid? How could you be selfless? I can’t — Don’t ever. I won’t._

“Well,” said Laurent. “He didn’t. We both live.”

To live was to breathe, and be thankful for the breaths. Laurent inhaled deeply, getting a lungful of fragrant steam, and when he leaned closer he got the warm, familiar scent of Damen’s skin. 

“I knew it didn’t bother you,” Damen said. “You liked it at the inn.”

“I liked more things than we ever imagined at the inn.” Laurent flushed at the memory of going to his knees and tasting Damen in the back of his throat. 

“That’s you’re way of saying I am right,” said Damen. 

“You always think you are right.” In this, though, he was. Laurent did like the rough, raw scent of skin that had sweated and a body that had worked. It was so different to the polished fragrance of princehood and court pets. It was not what he had thought would be enticing, which made it all the more enticing when it did. “And you were hardly lying in your own filth these days. Those who washed you were thorough.”

“Those?”

“I was thorough.” Laurent reached for a clean cloth. “I’ll be thorough again.” 

Laurent liked the intimacy. He knew Damen liked the novelty of Laurent paying attention to his body like this, or perhaps he liked the fact of it after all the times Laurent had made him unlace his clothing and tend to his armour. Role-reversal, or something like it when a prince was a slave for a time. He did not make a song and dance about it. Laurent was not inclined to call on performative seduction as a slave or a pet or an unsure suitor would. He was a king, as was Damen, and he didn’t know when it had happened but Laurent was utterly secure that he had an iron-clad hold of Damen’s affections.

Of course, Damen’s reliable inclination towards arousal whenever Laurent touched him, or looked at him, or said something he liked, or just when it had been too long since Laurent had touched him or looked at him or said something he liked was quite the confidence booster. 

Laurent never thought he would have that in his life. He never thought he would be wanted so affectionately, and that he would relish every second of it.

Cleaning Damen was practical, efficient but the steam and the bare skin made it into something more. Laurent didn’t mean to keep his gaze demurely lowered, but it was too much to look into Damen’s eyes. He felt Damen’s fingers twitch, as he dipped the cloth between each one. He saw the rippling go through his muscles as he ran the cloth carefully over the newly scarred stomach.

“That’s three times a sword has ran me through,” Damen said, conversationally, as Laurent avoided the site of Kastor’s wound. He couldn’t stop a glance at the raised line on Damen’s shoulder, which was much like the one on his own, except Auguste had swiftly driven in a sharp sword and Govart had twisted a cheap blunt knife. “Twice by my brother, once by yours.”

“There will not be a fourth,” Laurent said, like his need to keep Damen safe could spare him from danger. Like there would be any talking to him, if Damen saw a situation that he felt warranted the drawing of a sword. “I can’t go through this again,” he said, thinking maybe guilt would work.

“Lucky I am not the vengeful one among us,” Damen replied. 

“Who would you strike down?” There were plenty of people, of course, who would be dealt with. Some of Kastor’s faction had fled. The traitors among the Veretian council. 

“I meant that I would not seek to pay you back for the distress of the Kingsmeet.” Now, Laurent saw the flex of Damen’s throat. This was no easy thing to speak about. “You lied to me.”

“We have lied to each other. Do you prefer unscented soap or this one with the magnolia petals?”

“You do know now,” Damen said, “That it’s not something you need to do.” He didn’t mean the soap, or the cloth, or the gentle way Laurent’s fingers were working through the tangles in his hair. “We will meet any future challenges together. It will be —” He trailed off. There were so many things it could be. Simple. Like the way they worked together between Arles and the border. Honest. Open. There were no more lies between them. There were no people left with the ability to cause the kind of pain they had suffered, because neither of them had any family left.

“It will be,” Laurent said. A promise. It could be. He drew in a breath before he lost his courage. “I never wanted you to know what — happened between me and my uncle. I — that was why. It was never you.”

“Laurent.”

“Turn around on the bench,” Laurent instructed. He had a task. He could not quite look Damen in the eyes right now. 

Damen did as asked and Laurent realised he had made another huge mistake the instant Damen shifted on the bench. It was easier to look into probing eyes, or to let him see the naked pain on his face, than it was for Laurent to look at the mess of scars on Damen’s back. The water distorted them, too, and the effect made Laurent’s stomach twist.

But Laurent was good at hiding his reactions, and he applied the same diligence to cleaning Damen’s back as he had to his front. He told himself the bumps beneath the cloth were no different to the indents of muscles and bone. 

“They don’t hurt,” said Damen, in another familiar tone. The calm, comfortable one because it was easy to call on calmness and comfort when you had a life of calmness and comfort. “You were right when —”

“Right?” From Laurent, a disbelieving tone. He knew Damen, and knew his forgiving, accepting nature. Laurent had never in his life encountered someone so ready to accept horrendous situations. He treated traitors with kindness and enemies with respect. His own brother had killed their father, faked his death and sent him to his worst enemy as a slave. Yet Damen had still extended the hand of friendship and been willing to forgive. Damen would never understand the twisted glee Laurent took in making him suffer, over and over. Damen could not know what it was to lie under a vendetta until it made you as cold as the act you seeked to avenge.

Laurent had been wrong. There were no sweet ideas that could wipe that away.

“Yes, when you had Paschal treat the … treat me, then. I was not a willing patient.”

“I wasn’t ready for you to die yet,” Laurent said, lightly, because he still liked to shock Damen sometimes. Or, rather, he was so in the habit of saying things to shock people that shocking things came out of his mouth all the time. 

“I don’t feel it. I’ve even never looked at them.”

“You’re not as vain as I am.” Another sweep of the cloth. It was easier, when distracted by conversation. The scars probably didn’t hurt. Certainly, they must hurt less than the new wound on Damen’s stomach. But they were on his skin, part of his body. Damen had to feel the scratch of rough skin against his sheets at night or a tingle to the new flesh when the sun beamed down. Laurent felt the difference, the slide from rough to smooth, when his hands wandered and fingers gripped while Damen was was on top of him, inside him, loving him. 

“No-one is as vain as you.”

“Not since Nicaise, at least.” Another off-hand, trenchant comment. His hands were very gentle, though, on Damen’s scarred back. Laurent wished in this moment for a different nature — one that would allow him to whisper aureate apologies and summon some version of a cliche drama and kiss those raised white scars. 

“You have scars, too,” Damen said. 

“One paltry shoulder wound. It hardly even hurt.” 

“Liar,” Damen said, with a snort. He was right, as usual, but Laurent smarted because he also knew Damen believed himself to have a much higher pain threshold than him. He twisted his torso and Laurent was also not strong enough to hold him in place. 

“Stop moving, idiot. You’ll tear those stitches.”

“Look at me,” Damen said. Water made it easier to move. Laurent was less aware of the sharp edges of his limbs. The steam made everything hazy and a quick shift was all it took for Laurent to be facing Damen again. He had left the ledge. His stood in the tiled floor of the bath, water up to his waist. The heat could explain away the scarlet hue to his skin. The tangle of legs, the slide of bare thighs, the droplets of water glistening on Damen’s bare chest could all account for the rushing of his blood. 

Damen drew one hand along Laurent’s waist, over his ribcage, until it rested against his neck. Laurent put his cuffed hand on his forearm, because the need to ground himself to Damen was great. Greater, for once, than the need to keep the world at arms length.

“I suppose you’re going to say something unbearably loving and romantic and show me up for being callous,” Laurent said.

“No,” said Damen, with a wry smile. “It just occurred to me that I never said how I was wrong that day.”

“What day? They are plenty, I am sure, though you care not to admit them.”

“In the baths in Vere.”

“Don’t —”

“I was wrong. Arrogant and unthinking and so used to every one bowing to my whims, so used to the thrill of the chase and the easiness of —”

“Don’t,” Laurent said, again. “Please don’t.”

“Now, I’m not saying I deserved it.”

“If you did I would think it was your head that was injured instead of your stomach.” 

Acting, again, as if there was nothing wrong with his stomach at all Damen pulled Laurent closer. His body was all against Laurent’s now, only the lapping warm water between then. Laurent felt the it all — wet skin, firm muscle, tickling hairs and the welcome, gratifying pressure of growing arousal. 

“You have scars, Laurent,” Damen said, again. Ever since he got stabbed, he’d been taking pleasure in saying things to Laurent knowing the reaction would not be as it would have been before. Laurent would not be cruel while he was injured. He would not be cruel again. And since he had almost sacrificed his own life so Damen could have a chance at taking back his own life, and Damen had done the same to clear his name, well that changed things. No more uncertainty. No more doubt. Security led to uncomfortable conversations. Trust led to not clawing hard to the upper hand no matter what the cost.

“I —” Laurent couldn’t find the words. It was ridiculously cheesy to even consider replying that the scars were on his soul, that they would never heal as well as Damen, because he was made of more brittle stuff. He couldn’t voice the old ideas, where blamed Damianios the prince killer for all the pain that had befallen him because the other option was blaming himself and he did enough of that anyway. He hadn’t cracked the whip. Damen hadn’t put Laurent behind a locked door with his uncle. 

So he did what would have once seemed less likely than actually wearing the Veretian crown and initiated a kiss with Damen. He never thought he’d meet someone, then love someone, enough to let down his guard enough. To leave himself vulnerable. To reveal the inexperience that made him uncharacteristically timid. It was a gentle kiss. Laurent was having complicated feelings and Damen was still recovering, after all. It wasn’t the time for anything deep or hungry. 

It was less of a kiss than they had shared on the battlements, but it left a mark all the same. If a scar was the ugly reminder of an old wound, these kisses were the brilliant imprint that hurtled them both towards something better. 

"I do," he said, eventually. "We both do. But, do you know, I think maybe these baths have healing properties."

Damen smiled against his lips. "Wait until I take you to the ocean."

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading, guys! please let me know what you think. these prompts have me writing and posting in real time and for a change. not entirely happy with the ending but i could literally have these two talking forever and it was getting super long.


End file.
